Production Thoughts

Great idea. Makes me think of agile software development.

just got meself some second hand genelecs. they only have XLR inputs. what’s the most cost effective and hassle free way to connect them to my laptop?

A 3mm to stereo XLR cable? I have one.

lol didnt know they made those

get an audio interface with balanced outputs

1 BigUp

Yeah def get an interface.

The Audient ID4 is a really decent interface for the price and you can find some good deals on em 2nd hand.

You get the added benefit of having a decent headphone amp on the interface as well which is gonna be heaps better than the built in one on your computer

1 BigUp

I already got this

lost the usb though :confused: it’s an ancient one

you just need a USB Type B cable for that, its a really standard and cheap cable luckily

the problem is that the monitor output on the solo is far from ideal to hook up the genelecs to.

yeah is it because it doesnt have an XLR output?

yeah, its not ideal, but you should be able to get away with using RCA to XLR cables (mostly likely will sound totally fine tho)

try to get the shortest cable you can for the length you need to minimize any risk of interference since im pretty sure this is an unbalanced connection

yes I have rca to xlr cables. now I just need the usb but I dont wanna order a tiny ass cord from china. hopefully I can get it from a local electronics store

you should be able to, its a really common connector for a lot of consumer electronics like printers, scanners, etc

tbh if you have a printer or scanner you dont use anymore, you can just use the cable from that. External HDDs commonly use these connectors too

1 BigUp

I already made a quick browse and I can find usbs of every other kind except this around the house lol its weird

USB B shows a variety of cables in image search, but the one the interface needs is this

yeah, usb type b 2.0

usb

Yeah with those cables it will be, the earth will be wired to the negative terminal on the rca, but it should be fine. I’ve got genelecs with my decks in the same configuration (unbalanced rca to xlr) and I’ve never had a problem

1 BigUp

So I read that my sub should be in mono.

  1. Why should I do that?
  2. How should I do that?

Stereo sub just leads to messy phase issues, especially on 4 point club installs.
It’s also very hard for us to actually hear where bass or sub is coming from because any signal under 80hz or so will develop pretty much omnidirectional. Obviously, good subs will direct the sound pressure quite well, but in the air there’s no pin pointing it.

You can use mono samples or a mono synth for you bass. Any stereo signal you send to a mono channel will also be consolidated. There’s various plugins that will let you meter how stereo your signal is and change it accordingly, usually called an imager or something like that.

3 Likes

Have the sub in mono then bus it out and have a more stereo layer where you cut it below the low-mid freqs if you’re concerned about your bass sounding too dry by doing this

The actual subby sub should be mono, like axed says. There isn’t a high enough resolution in low frequencies that you can have complex pleasant harmonies. That’s why you don’t play whole chords down in the sub range, why most dubstep just has a simple sine wave for a sub etc.

Some music intentionally has a harmonic low end tho, like some lofi hip hop thing or anything else that’s not meant for powerful club impact, or grime tunes with squarewave subs that sound extremely nasty and harsh in a sick way

1 BigUp

Thanks guys. Extremely helpful. Better revisit my old tunes and tweak them subs!

This is also a great opportunity to learn about mid/side mixing - a subtle but super helpful thing to know.

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